News Release

PROGRESSIVE GROUP AT FOREFRONT OF FIGHT TO FIX THE NATION’S HEALTH CARE SYSTEM EMBRACES HOUSE REFORM BILL

Jennifer Ettinger — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:01:18 -0800

Historic health care overhaul legislation Democratic leaders predict will pass in the House on Saturday marks a “momentous step toward making a guarantee of quality health care a reality for all Americans,” according to Campaign for America’s Future health care project director Diane Archer who declared her organization’s strong public support for the bill today.

Democratic leaders predict that they will have the 218 votes needed to pass the sweeping bill that President Obama has made his top domestic priority. The “Affordable Health Care for America Act of 2009” (H.R. 3962) would extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans and ban insurance companies from turning people away because of pre-existing conditions.

STATEMENT OF DIANE ARCHER AND ROGER HICKEY
CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE

The Campaign for America's Future declares our strong public support for the "Affordable Health Care for America Act of 2009" (H.R. 3962).

While we would’ve preferred stronger provisions in some key areas, this legislation constitutes a momentous step toward making a guarantee of quality affordable health care a reality for all Americans. And we hope that it serves as a model for action by the Senate.

The bill calls for shared responsibility by individuals, employers and government. It retains and strengthens employer-sponsored insurance, which currently provides the majority of Americans under the age of 65 with health coverage. It provides progressive financing and promotes good health policy by requiring employers to share responsibility for health care costs and the wealthiest one percent of Americans to pay their fair share instead of taxing health care benefits.

The Campaign for America’s Future is particularly supportive of the provisions in the bill that make health insurance and health care services more affordable, and those that make health insurance companies more accountable.

The inclusion of premium assistance, reduced cost-sharing, an annual out-of-pocket limit and comprehensive benefit packages, will help ensure that low- and middle-income individuals and families with health insurance will no longer have to file for bankruptcy when they have a medical crisis.

In addition, the inclusion of a public health insurance option will increase competition and set a benchmark for transparency and efficiency that will help lower the current unsustainable health care cost curve. Stronger federal regulations, including repealing the antitrust exemption for health insurers, as well as complementary federal oversight and enforcement of insurance regulations, will also assist in keeping insurance companies competitive and more responsive to the needs of their members over those of Wall Street.

Netroots Nation 2009 Straw Poll Results

Toby Chaudhuri — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 09:22:23 -0700

PITTSBURGH, PA. – Progressive bloggers and activists are focused on pushing comprehensive health care reform this year and overwhelmingly support Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., over Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., for the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nomination, according to a straw poll at this year’s Netroots Nation convention conducted by the Campaign for America’s Future and Democracy Corps.

Sixty percent of respondents said overhauling the nation’s health care system is one of their top two priorities. Fifty-three percent said they will not support a health care bill that does not include a public insurance option. Passing clean energy and environmental protection measures came in second with 22 percent.

President Clinton, former Gov. Howard Dean and White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett all spoke this week at this year’s convention, which attracted more than 1,500 progressive bloggers and activists. Sen. Specter and Rep. Sestak both addressed the convention on Friday. Sen. Specter, who did not support a public health insurance option before, told the audience he supports it now.

In a match-up between the two candidates vying for the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nomination, neither candidate reached 50 percent. A third remained undecided while 48 percent choose Rep. Sestak and 10 percent choose Sen. Specter. Rep Sestak was viewed more positively with a favorability rating of 46 compared to 15 for Sen. Specter.

President Obama received a 95 percent approval rating among the group. Not surprisingly, Sarah Palin was extremely unpopular with participants. Only 1 percent of attendees rated Palin favorably while 88 percent rated her unfavorably. Thirty-six percent rated Palin as the easiest Republican presidential nominee to defeat in 2012, followed by former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who was rated as easiest to beat by 20 percent, and Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La., who was the choice of 12 percent.

This year’s convention marked the second year that Campaign for America’s Future and Democracy Corps conducted a straw poll at the Netroots Nation bloggers convention. More than 250 attendees participated in this year’s straw poll between Thursday, Aug. 13 and Friday, Aug. 14.

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**NOTE: An electronic copy of the straw poll results are available online at http://www.ourfuture.org/fact-sheets-briefs/2009083314/netroots-nation-straw-poll-health-care-no-1-issue.**

HOUSE HEALTH REFORM BILL WOULD DELIVER ON PRESIDENT OBAMA’S VISION, SAYS CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICA’S FUTURE

Nathan Maton-Parkinson — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 08:37:33 -0700

WASHINGTON – Campaign for America’s Future health care project director Diane Archer today praised the House for introducing a health reform bill that delivers on President Obama’s vision. Archer declared that America's Affordable Health Choices Act is designed to control costs and deliver quality affordable health care to all. She said the bill, if passed without serious changes, can accomplish these goals.

STATEMENT OF DIANE ARCHER

The House bill makes it possible to achieve quality, affordable health care for all.

We’re determined to make sure that the House bill sets the standard for achieving necessary change. We urge the House to pass this bill and encourage members of the Senate to emulate its key provisions. We must reject efforts by conservatives to erode or weaken its key elements.

The House bill would strengthen employer-based insurance and allow people to keep what they have if they like it, while giving people without employer coverage the choice between public and private insurance plans.

It would create a national public health insurance plan option to compete on a level playing field with private insurers, reining in costs and delivering better value.

It would create a national insurance exchange with both private and public plan options to give everyone access to affordable, reliable and comprehensive health care coverage.

And it would help people with low incomes afford health insurance.

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**NOTE: Campaign for America’s Future health project director Diane Archer and Campaign for America’s Future co-director Roger Hickey are available to discuss the House and Senate health bills. To schedule an interview, please contact Jennifer Ettinger at jettinger@ourfuture.org or 202-587-1614.**

PROMINENT HEALTH EXPERTS WHO SUPPORT PUBLIC INSURANCE OPTION AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW

Jennifer Ettinger — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:17:14 -0700

As the health reform debate heats up in Congress, the Institute for America’s Future today released the names of prominent health care experts and economists available for analysis and interviews. All the experts favor a public health insurance option to compete with private plans, but they are good sources on all developing issues related to the health care debate.

“Conservatives and health industry forces are putting forward their experts to attack the public insurance option,” said Diane Archer, director of the Institute for America’s Future Health Care Project. “We want to make sure the media has ready access to experts who see the public insurance option as critical to health reform and cost control. These experts don’t agree on everything, but they have helped shape key elements of reform – the public option, affordability, universal coverage, regulation of insurance companies and equal access to good benefits.”

Institute for America’s Future co-director Roger Hickey said that many of the 33 health experts listed recently published work directly relevant to the current health care debate, citing the following examples: Jacob Hacker, the first to put the public insurance option on the agenda, has an article about what America would look like without it in The New Republic. The Urban Institute’s John Holahan and Linda Blumberg released a new report on how a public insurance plan would increase competition and lower costs. The Economic Policy Institute’s Elise Gould wrote a new paper on the drawbacks of taxing public insurance. Hickey has an oped in Sunday’s New York Times opposing taxing health benefits.

A searchable list of experts, complete with photos, biographies and contact information is available at www.ourfuture.org/healthexperts. Experts available to the media include:

--Gerard Anderson, Ph.D., director, Center for Hospital Finance and Management and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 410-955-3241, ganderso@jhsph.edu

--Diane Archer, director, Institute for America’s Future Health Care Project, 212-866-0908, darcher@ourfuture.org

--Valerie Arkoosh, MD, MPH, president-elect, National Physicians Alliance, 215-694-0885, valerie.arkoosh@npalliance.net

--Dean Baker, co-director, Center for Economic and Policy Research, 202-293-5380 x114, baker@cepr.net

--David Balto, senior fellow, Center for American Progress, 202-789-5424, dbalto@americanprogress.org

--Robert Berenson, M.D., senior fellow, Urban Institute, 202-833-7200, rberenson@urban.org

--Linda Bergthold, consultant, Stanford University, 831-462-1334, lbergthold@sbcglobal.net

--Josh Bivens, economist, Economic Policy Institute, 202-755-8810, news@epi.org

--Sam Blair, director, Main Street Alliance, 603-831-1835, sblair@mainstreetalliance.org

--Linda Blumberg, Ph.D., senior fellow, The Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center, 202-261-5769, lblumberg@urban.org

--E. Richard Brown, Ph.D., director, UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, erbrown@ucla.edu

--Lisa Dubay, associate professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 410-502-0985, ldubay@jhsph.edu

--Elise Gould, director of Health Policy Research, Economic Policy Institute, 202-755-8810, news@epi.org

--Thomas Greaney, director, Center for Health Law Studies and law professor at St. Louis University; greanetl@slu.edu

--Jacob Hacker, professor, Yale University, 914-372-2225, Jacob.hacker@yale.edu

--Roger Hickey, co-director, Institute for America’s Future, 202-587-1604, hickey@ourfuture.org

--John Holahan, director, The Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center, 202-261-5666, jholahan@urban.org

--Ken Jacobs, chair, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment and UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, 510-643-2621, kjacobs9@berkeley.edu

--Timothy Jost, law professor, Washington and Lee University School of Law, 540-458-8510, jostt@wlu.edu

--Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager, Health Care for America Now, 202-454-6196, rkirsch@healthcareforamericanow.org

--Maggie Mahar, fellow, The Century Foundation, 202-293-5380 x114, healthbeat@tcf.org

--Ted Marmor, professor, Yale School of Management and adjunct professor at Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government, 203-432-3238, Theodore.marmor@yale.edu

--Jim Morone, professor of Political Science and Urban Studies, Brown University, 401-863-1573, james_morone@brown.edu

--Vivek Murthy, MD, MBA, president, Doctors for America and instructor, Harvard Medical School, 786-245-4550, vivekmurthy@post.harvard.edu

--Jonathan Oberlander, assistant professor, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 919-843-8269, oberland@med.unc.edu

--Frank Pasquale, law professor, Seton Hall University, 973-642-8485, pasquafa@shu.edu

--Harold Pollack, associate professor, University of Chicago School of Social Service, 708-275-6841, haroldpollack@gmail.com

--Karen Pollitz, project director, Health Policy Institute, Georgetown University, 202-687-3003, pollitzk@georgetown.edu

--Robert Reich, professor, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC Berkeley, 510-642-0560, rreich@berkeley.edu

--Mark Schlessinger, Ph.D., professor, Yale School of Public Health, 203-785-4619, mark.schlesinger@yale.edu

--Jeanne Silver-Isenstadt, MD, Ph.D., executive director, National Physicians Alliance, 703-254-8972, jean@npalliance.org

--Judith Stein, executive director, Center for Medicare Advocacy, 860-456-7790, jstein@medicareadvocacy.org

--Joseph White, Ph.D., director, Center for Policy Studies and professor at Case Western Reserve University, 216-368-2426, jxw87@case.edu

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**NOTE: A searchable list of experts, complete with expert photos, biographies and contact information is available at http://ourfuture.org/healthexperts.**

“AMERICA’S FUTURE NOW” STRAW POLL: PROGRESSIVES SEE HEALTH CARE REFORM WITH PUBLIC OPTION AS TOP PRIORITY

Toby Chaudhuri — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:08:12 -0700

WASHINGTON – Progressives gathered at this week’s “America’s Future Now” conference found a lot to like in President Obama’s first 100 days, but they are very focused on health care reform as their highest priority, according to a straw poll of participants conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for the Campaign for America’s Future and Democracy Corps. Pollster Stan Greenberg joined Campaign for America’s Future co-director Robert Borosage at the closing session of the three-day conference today to release the poll results.

Forty-three percent of conference-goers said health care reform should be the president’s top priority, with all the other issue responses in the teens or lower. And while participants strongly support the president and his priorities, 63 percent said they will not support a health care plan without a public health insurance option, even if that is the only way to get the plan passed.

Fixing the nation’s broken health care system is the focus of an $82 million push by progressive groups announced earlier this week at the “America’s Future Now” conference. The combined effort is the largest national progressive issue campaign in history, one that was lacking when President Clinton’s health care proposals were defeated by the health care industry and conservative groups 15 years ago.

The straw poll also showed that while two thirds of conference attendees -- 66 percent -- favor congressional investigations into how the Bush Administration handled terrorist suspects, an even stronger majority -- 81 percent -- would like to see Congress investigate the fraud and excesses of Wall Street that led to the financial crisis.

Not surprisingly, Rush Limbaugh is incredibly unpopular with “America’s Future Now” conference participants. Greenberg said Limbaugh’s favorability rating -- with only 3 percent of participants rating him favorably -- represents the lowest personal rating of any poll he has conducted.

The straw poll also surveyed the popularity of key media figures. Jon Stewart bested Stephen Colbert in the favorability battery, with 83 percent of attendees rating Stewart favorably compared to 79 percent who did so for Colbert. Rachel Maddow was viewed more favorably than Keith Olbermann, with 70 and 68 percent rating Maddow and Olbermann warmly respectively.

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**NOTE: Media representatives interested in detailed straw poll results should visit www.ourfuture.org or www.democracycorps.com. Slides are available upon request. **

PROGRESSIVE GROUPS TO SPEND MORE THAN $82 MILLION TO ENSURE REAL HEALTH CARE REFORM PASSES THIS YEAR

Toby Chaudhuri — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:14:14 -0700

WASHINGTON – Progressive groups are poised to spend more than $82 million to support President Obama's goal of achieving quality, affordable health care for all this year, according to leaders gathered today at the “America’s Future Now” conference in Washington.

Participants in the effort include the Health Care for America Now campaign; the two main labor federations, the AFL-CIO and Change To Win; as well as MoveOn.org, Democracy for America and mobilization groups representing people of color, women and young people. The various organizations serve different functions, with the bulk of the spending financing advertising and grassroots organizing on- and off-line across the country.

The collective effort involves the more than 1,000 organizations that are part of Health Care for America Now, representing over 30 million members committed to winning a guarantee of quality, affordable health care for all this year. It is the largest national progressive issue campaign in history, one that was lacking when President Clinton’s health care proposals were defeated by the health care industry and conservative groups more than a decade ago.

Gov. Howard Dean, who recently became chairman of the board of the Progressive Book Club, joined organizers to announce details on Monday at a news conference sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future. Gov. Dean said the progress made over the last several years and the election of President Obama are just the beginning.

“Over the past few years, we have worked together to build a progressive infrastructure and a movement that helped to elect President Obama and begin to undo the damage of the last eight years. But it was just the beginning,” said Gov. Dean. “As the health care reform debate makes clear, America needs a strong progressive movement, now is not the time to become complacent.”

Campaign for America’s Future co-director Robert Borosage said that while conservatives are increasingly splintered and isolated, progressive groups are coordinating their efforts and mobilizing independently to fight special interests standing in the way of President Obama’s bold agenda.

“While the conservative coalition has collapsed, progressives have continued to build and expand,” said Borosage. “We are both more unified and better mobilized than ever.”

Health Care for America Now national campaign manager Richard Kirsch said his coalition launched last summer across the country with the notion that 2009 was going to be the year the nation could finally achieve quality, affordable health care for all.

“We knew we couldn't win health care reform in 2008, but we knew we could lose it if we didn't lay the groundwork for the very moment we're in right now,” said Kirsch. “We have the momentum for real change, and with the commitment of the president and Democratic leadership in Congress, we know we can be stronger and louder than the special interests who make money off the status quo and would have any reform continue to put their profits before people's health.”

The effort comes at a time when Americans hold progressive positions on an increasingly broad range of controversial issues, according to a recent study from the Pew Research Center. Also, key constituencies that favor progressives are growing larger, according to a report released last week by the Campaign for America’s Future and Media Matters for America. As a result, progressives are seizing their greatest opportunity for change in a generation.

Change to Win chair Anna Burger introduced results from a new survey conducted by pollster Celinda Lake at today's news conference. The poll conducted for Change to Win shows that working people want government to invest in health care, good jobs and educational opportunity.

Burger said that most Americans blame corporate greed and its stranglehold on government for the decline of the American Dream. Working Americans reject the right-wing view and want positive government action on renewing the American Dream.

"Working Americans are looking for economic security, including jobs that pay a living wage, a secure retirement and opportunity for the next generation to succeed," said Burger.

"Comprehensive health care reform lies at the heart of the American Dream, and without it, the Dream is unobtainable. We're organizing on all fronts to make this a dream a reality for all of America's workers."

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TRUSTEES REPORT UNDERLINES PRESSING NEED FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM

Rachel Perrone — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:19:12 -0700

Robert Borosage: Progressives must push back on conservative attempts to cut entitlements, focus on real solutions.

WASHINGTON – In response to today’s release of the annual Social Security & Medicare Trustees report, Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future, urged Congress not to bend to conservative hysteria, but to address the real root of the problem – our broken health care system and its out-of-control costs.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT BOROSAGE, CO-DIRECTOR, CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICA’S FUTURE

The Trustees report reveals what we already knew: Social Security and Medicare lose revenue when unemployment is rising, just as they are strengthened when the economy is growing. Reviving the economy must be our first priority.

Conservatives will no doubt seek to use the report to raise alarms about Social Security and Medicare, and call for bipartisan efforts to reduce the benefits. At least, given the collapse of the stock market, they’ve shelved calls for privatizing Social Security for the time being. But their focus on entitlements is equally bad policy.

Everyone should be clear. America does not have an “entitlements problem” Its structural long-term debt problems are entirely a problem of soaring health care costs. Get health care costs under control, and we have no long-term structural problem. Fail to get health care costs under control, and families, companies, state governments and the federal government will face soaring debts. President Obama is exactly right: the priority must be to fix our broken health care system.

Focusing on cutting entitlements not only gets the problem wrong, it makes the problem worse. Americans have lost an estimated $13 trillion in wealth in the last two years, with most of the losses suffered by those 45 and older. Retirement security has been shattered. Half of all workers have no retirement plan at all through their jobs, and the remainder increasingly have 401(k)s that just got hit with significant losses from already insufficient savings. Many counted on their homes as a chief source of savings, but can no longer on that. The one source of security is the floor provided by Social Security. The last thing any responsible leader should do is recommend cutting those benefits or raising the retirement age – again. If anything, this downturn is a good time to raise Social Security benefits to help lift America from the downturn.

The president and Congress should focus on the challenges we face. Revive the economy, and restructure it for sustainable growth. Fix our broken health care system. Targeting entitlements like Social Security and Medicare is a diversion, not an answer.

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**NOTE: For more information, visit:
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009052012/stop-entitlement-crisis-fear-mongering.**

New Report: Massachusetts Health Reform Is Unaffordable, Unsustainable, Unacceptable

Rachel Perrone — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:17:26 -0700

Resources

• Press Release

• Full Report- Massachusetts Health Reform: Near Universal Coverage, But No Cost Controls or Guarantee of Quality, Affordable Health Care for All (PDF)

• Key findings (PDF)

Additional Resources

• Jacob Hacker: "The Case For Public Plan Choice in National Health Reform: Key to Cost Control and Quality Coverage" (PDF)

• Jacob Hacker's "Health Care for America" report and the Lewin Group cost analysis

• Frank Clemente's "A Public Health Insurance Plan: Reducing Costs and Improving Quality" (PDF)

• The Path to a High Performance U.S. Health System: A 2020 Vision and the Policies to Pave the Way

• Leaders and Experts Agree that a Public Insurance Option is Critical to the Success of Obama’s Health Reform Proposals (PDF)

WASHINGTON – The Massachusetts health care reform plan resulted in nearly universal coverage but fails as a model for national health reform on a number of counts, according to a new report released today by the Institute for America's Future. The report by Diane Archer, co-director of the Institute for America’s Future’s health project, finds that the Massachusetts model fails to control costs or guarantee quality, affordable health care for all.

Massachusetts implemented new and innovative health care reform that provides subsidies for people earning under 300 percent of the federal poverty level, making health insurance more affordable to a wider pool of people.
In a conference call with reporters earlier today, Archer pointed out, “The reform has been very effective at increasing accessibility of insurance for Massachusetts residents, resulting in the lowest rate of uninsurance in the nation. But because the plan does not contain any mechanisms for reining in the rapidly increasing cost of health care, it has limited potential for long-term sustainability or application at the national level.”

The Massachusetts plan does not guarantee that everyone who is insured will be able to afford the health care they need. In addition, the major reduction of the Massachusetts uncompensated care pool, a byproduct of reform, means the uninsured remain vulnerable to the catastrophic costs of a sudden acute illness or accident. And because the Massachusetts plan offers private health care plans through a health insurance exchange that is stratified based on income, portability is limited and changes in employment status or income can result in the loss of coverage while enrollees switch plans.

Institute for America’s Future co-director Roger Hickey said the report showed that “The Massachusetts plan continues to promote market domination by a small number of private insurers, which have contributed to spiraling health care costs. It offers no alternative, such as a public health insurance plan to drive competition, offset insurer market power and rein in costs.”

While Massachusetts continues to be a leader in providing affordable health care to its residents, using it as a model for national reform would not address many of the significant issues facing our health care system. The public health insurance plan option proposed by President Obama and Senator Baucus, D-Mont., would compete with private insurance plans on a level playing field, control costs, provide guaranteed back-up coverage for anyone who needs it and set a benchmark for ensuring all Americans quality, affordable health care.

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**“Massachusetts Health Reform: Near Universal Coverage, But No Cost Controls or Guarantee of Quality, Affordable Health Care for All” is available at http://ourfuture.org/healthcare/massachusetts.**

BACKGROUND MATERIALS ON PUBLIC HEALTH INSURANCE

Jacob Hacker report, “The Case for Public Plan Choice in National Health Reform: Key to Cost Control and Quality Coverage” http://institute.ourfuture.org/files/Jacob_Hacker_Public_Plan_Choice.pdf

Jacob Hacker report “Health Care for America” and the Lewin Group cost analysis: http://www.sharedprosperity.org/topics-health-care.html

Leaders and Experts Agree that a Public Insurance Option is Critical to the Success of Obama’s Health Reform Proposals: http://institute.ourfuture.org/files/Public_plan_quotes_Obama_Baucus_others.pdf

A Public Health Insurance Plan: Reducing Costs and Improving Quality Executive summary: http://institute.ourfuture.org/public_plan

Full report: http://www.ourfuture.org/files/IAF_A_Public_Health_Insurance_Plan_FINAL.pdf

HCAN public opinion polling data: http://healthcareforamericanow.org/site/content/public_rejects_insurance_industrys_misleading_claims_new_poll_shows

Progressive Leaders Urge Focus on Reviving Growth and Health Reform, Not Cutting Entitlements or Budget Austerity

Rachel Perrone — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 07:14:01 -0800

WASHINGTON – Economists and progressive leaders argued today that Monday’s White House “fiscal responsibility summit” should focus on continuing strategies to grow the economy through public investment and on health care reform, not on cutting Social Security or Medicare – and not on budget austerity plans that could worsen the current serious recession.

Campaign for America’s Future co-director Roger Hickey said on a conference call with reporters today that the problem with a debate over fiscal responsibility is that right-wingers see it as an opportunity to hijack the agenda to support an attack on vital safety nets.

“Well-funded conservative budget hawks, like Peter Peterson, have tried to dominate the discussion of future budget challenges,” said Hickey. “The conservative budget crusade seeks to cut Social Security and Medicare. Though they sometimes claim to be ‘freeing up’ resources for things like investing in children, their real agenda is austerity – cuts in what they call ‘entitlements,’ cuts in domestic spending, cuts in investment in future growth and productivity.”

Center for Economic and Policy Research co-director Dean Baker joined Hickey on today’s call. Baker said America’s long-term budget problem is almost entirely caused by skyrocketing health care costs.

“We don’t have an entitlements crisis, we have a health care crisis,” said Baker. “If we don’t fix health care, our economy is devastated no matter what else we do. If we do fix health care, the other issues are easy to handle.”

Economist and professor James Galbraith made it clear during the call that with the economic recession deepening, this is the worst time to threaten the stability of Social Security benefits.

“Threatening the stability of Social Security’s guranteed benefits -- now or in the long-term -- is not constructive,” said Galbraith. “This would raise the anxiety of our working population, since Social Security and Medicare represent an important part of their economic security.”

Nancy Altman, former top assistant to Alan Greenspan on the 1983 Social Security Commission also joined the others experts on today’s call. Altman said that it’s important to get the facts straight about Social Security, especially because it deeply effects the most vulnerable among us – the poor, the aged, the sick, the disabled, the widowed and the orphaned.

“There is a lot of misinformation floating around about Social Security,” said Altman. “The Social Security system has been swept together with Medicare and Medicaid into the alarming sound-bite of an entitlement crisis. But the entitlement crisis frame is highly distorting. Social Security is the most fiscally responsible part of the entire federal budget, and will be in surplus for the next two decades. There is no reason that longer term deficits can’t be addressed simply.”

For more information, read "The Truth About Fiscal Responsibility."

New Report Shows Why Health Care Reform Must Include Obama's Public Health Insurance Plan

Rachel Perrone — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 08:09:48 -0800

WASHINGTON – National health care reform legislation must provide consumers the option to join a new public health insurance plan that would directly compete with private health insurance plans, according to a new report, “A Public Health Insurance Plan: Reducing Costs and Improving Quality” released today by the Institute for America’s Future. The report compares the long and successful track record of Medicare, which would partly serve as a model for a new public health insurance plan, against the record of private plans, and argues that such a model is the best way to drive down costs and improve health care quality.

During the campaign, President Obama proposed a public health insurance plan as part of a new National Health Insurance Exchange, through which individuals and small businesses could purchase health coverage. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has made a similar proposal.

“The public health insurance plan will be a major point of contention as the debate over health care reform heats up,” said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Institute for America’s Future. “Groups representing consumers and patients are aligned in favor of Obama’s proposal, and the insurance, drug and hospital industries are arrayed against such a proposal.”

Frank Clemente, health care expert and author of the report, joined Hickey on a conference call today to release the report. “There is overwhelming evidence that a public health insurance plan controls spiraling health costs much better than private insurance, while providing high-quality care and the broadest choice of providers to consumers,” said Clemente. “Giving consumers the ability to choose between competing public and private health insurance plans will save the system enormous sums of money and give consumers peace of mind.”

Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager for Health Care for America Now, a coalition of groups working hard to make quality health care affordable, joined Hickey and Kirsch on today’s call. Kirsch pointed to new public opinion data by Celinda Lake that shows most Americans want a public health insurance plan.

Said Kirsch, “Including the choice of a new public health insurance plan in comprehensive health care reform is the only way to bring down costs and force private insurance companies to compete. We need a guarantee of quality, affordable health care for all in 2009, and the public clearly understands the importance of having a choice of a private or public health insurance plan. The public clearly understands it’s how we hold insurance companies accountable and guarantee we will have quality, affordable health care when we need it.”

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**For more information, including the full report, a one-page brief of key findings, and public data, please visit: http://institute.ourfuture.org/public_plan**

News Release

PROGRESSIVE GROUP AT FOREFRONT OF FIGHT TO FIX THE NATION’S HEALTH CARE SYSTEM EMBRACES HOUSE REFORM BILL

**Netroots Nation 2009 Straw Poll Results**

HOUSE HEALTH REFORM BILL WOULD DELIVER ON PRESIDENT OBAMA’S VISION, SAYS CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICA’S FUTURE

PROMINENT HEALTH EXPERTS WHO SUPPORT PUBLIC INSURANCE OPTION AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEW

“AMERICA’S FUTURE NOW” STRAW POLL: PROGRESSIVES SEE HEALTH CARE REFORM WITH PUBLIC OPTION AS TOP PRIORITY

PROGRESSIVE GROUPS TO SPEND MORE THAN $82 MILLION TO ENSURE REAL HEALTH CARE REFORM PASSES THIS YEAR

TRUSTEES REPORT UNDERLINES PRESSING NEED FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM

New Report: Massachusetts Health Reform Is Unaffordable, Unsustainable, Unacceptable

Resources

Progressive Leaders Urge Focus on Reviving Growth and Health Reform, Not Cutting Entitlements or Budget Austerity

New Report Shows Why Health Care Reform Must Include Obama's Public Health Insurance Plan

Netroots Nation 2009 Straw Poll Results